Crazy Nightmares
by Woodswolf
Summary: The prequel to Empty Coffin. It can be read before or after without spoilers. *Movie-verse*  Rated T for mild language later.


I'm alone in this world. There's no one and nothing here for me, people that really understand.

Somewhere, someone cares - but doesn't know. They are next to me. Somewhere, someone knows - but doesn't care. They're in my nightmares.

They don't know what my life was like. They don't know what I went through. They don't know what I'm going through now.

My name is Coraline Jones.

And I can guarantee you, my life is not normal.

I wish I could just have a normal life. But no, the world isn't fair enough to do a good turn for someone. Especially someone it's tortured so much in the past.

Hard to stop, you know?

It still isn't an excuse, though... you'd think that after the door was locked, the adventure was over, that it would still be worth living. You'd think that my world would return to sanity.

No. I'm not lucky enough for that. Luck and chance don't like me now and didn't like me then, even if they helped me. Think about it. In every tale that goes 'happily-ever-after', they don't tell what happens before the _real _happily-ever-after... in other words, when life gains sanity again.

For several years, I'd been shaken up over the whole thing. And I'm still wary of the room, the thing that started it all.

The well isn't safe enough. I've known that for a while now. The only way to be sure is to melt down the key, and take parts of it and put them in every country in the world. And then demolish the Pink Palace, and forsake the ground on which it was built.

Unfortunately, she'll just come back somewhere else. She might already be somewhere else, killing children I don't know, not caring, not even remembering my name.

Or she might be right behind the door, listening to my thoughts. Waiting for the time to strike.

Well, she already knows when it is.

The time is now.

And I'm afraid of it.

My daughter, Maria, isn't really the type of person to fall for it easily. Thank god.

She'll have to be convinced just about as much as I had to be. Which really wasn't much, thinking about it. I was convinced enough to keep coming back, but not enough to make a deal withher, thankfully.

Otherwise Maria wouldn't be here, and I wouldn't be, either...

There's no cat to be her guardian angel, either. He died several years ago, or, at least, we stopped seeing him around. Knowing him, he probably went a bit too far with a taunt...

One way or another, she's going to find a way in.

And that's when I see a familiar piece of string, and a small black stick tipped with the things of my nightmares. Out on the porch, casually sitting there like it's a permanent fixture.

I don't know how it's here, but it's back.

And that means there's only one thing to do.

My husband doesn't truly know the world she made. He was never there. He doesn't know what it's like.

But he knows enough to fear it when I dangle it in front of his eyes.

I tell him I'm going to hide it. I'm going to hide it until I can find a way to throw it in the ocean, or destroy it, or bring it to the moon, or throw it into outer space so that it can get sucked up by a black hole.

The faster that key ceases to exist, according to humanity, the faster I can be at peace.

But the next morning I wake up, and there's a key in the lock.

And Maria is telling me of a crazy dream.

I know it's only time.

It's only time, but hopefully it will be a longer amount of time. I lock the door and take the key.

Even if I'm closer to Maria than my parents were to me when I was there, closer to her than I am to my past, I know that it's only time, which is something the Beldam might not have much of.

I don't know how long she can survive without a meal.

Another crazy dream.

It's only time.

I know why she's here. I know what she wants.

She wants me. She just wants me. She's trying to take my daughter to take me.

It's working.

I know what I have to do.

I put the key in the lock.

I say my goodbyes.

And I ask my Maria to lock the door behind me.


End file.
